Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Day 11: Home Office (Part 1)

I'm here! Really truly, I am! I bet you all thought I had given up and QUIT on you, didn't you? Well, you are WRONG! Unless of course you had faith in me that I would be back to finish, because then you were RIGHT!

I have gotten WAY BEHIND on my 30-Day Power Purge challenge! But I have a long list of really great excuses. . . do you want to hear them? Yeah, I didn't think so. Alright then, let's just say that I actually HAVE decluttered quite a bit since the last time I wrote. But it's ALL been on the HOME OFFICE!!! And the reason it's taking me so long is because this past weekend, we started cleaning out our office so we could turn it in to a bedroom for my nephew, Evan, who is living here with us. So - OUT with all that accumulated clutter, and IN with Evan's stuff!

It was really fun because Evan was gone with my husband Lonny for the afternoon on Saturday, so my daughter Christianna decided we should surprise them by getting the bedroom put together while they were gone. She just started going at it and pretty much "cracked the whip" on the rest of us so we would jump in and help. Hahaha. I was glad because I wanted to get it done. Plus it sounded like fun to make it a surprise. BUT - it wasn't such a great idea as far as moving around furniture because the two oldest men in the house were not here! So it was a bit crazy with the rest of us trying to move a big computer desk down the stairs, get all the stuff in boxes and transferred to the other room, bring in the extra bed, and get everything done "enough" that it could at least feel somewhat like a real bedroom before they got back. Plus we had to move several large pieces of furniture, boxes & computer equipment to the downstairs family room into the new "office" area.

Here's our new office space in the downstairs family room! Can you believe we moved that computer desk down the stairs by ourselves without the men home? It was insane! Especially when we almost dropped the whole thing on top of Christianna as we went down the stairs! And then, just as we saved it, Jessica got hit in the forehead with the upper cabinet door as it swung open! Whew! Thank goodness for strong teenage daughters and my buff 13yo son Joshua. You kids are the best ever!!

It was really cute because the kids all wanted to stay up late to see Lonny & Evan's reaction, so when they finally came home sometime after 11pm, my youngest two children greeted them all excitedly and told Evan they needed to blindfold him. He consented, and then they led him to his new "room" and shouted surprise! It was fun.

Honestly, it was way too big of a job for one night because the "office" had a dual-purpose as my ebay/donation sorting area, so there were are all sorts of containers full of miscellaneous junk in there. Even so, by the time we "finished", it looked pretty good - we had a nice bed set up and an empty dresser, plus a chair and place for his guitar, but there was still a very LARGE stack of papers, boxes, and misc clutter piled on top of the old desk, waiting to be decluttered when the weekend was over. And when I say LARGE stack, we are talking as tall as my head! And I am a short person, but still! It was pretty daunting.

SO - on Monday we spent a few more hours sorting and decluttering and got quite a bit of it gone through. Needless to say, it's a pretty big job so there will still be several more sessions to do as we finished decluttering the old office and get the new office area set up. We put the family computer in a corner of the family room with the printer and computer desk, and created a little studying cubby for Lonny in our "Harry Potter Closet", which is our room under the stairs. :) There is still quite a bit to do, but I just LOVE re-arranging things, so it's been a lot of fun, and a very needed decluttering job.

So . . . see! I didn't forget and forsake my obligation to all of you! I am still plugging along, working one day at a time, and making progress! Here are a few pictures of what we accomplished on Saturday night:

Here's the new bedroom we set up in the old upstairs office! The kids even placed a few books Evan was reading near his bed, Josh made an airsoft gallery picture for the wall, and we lit up a Scentsy warmer so he'd have a great-smelling nightlight. :) Definitely better accommodations that just crashing on the couch! :)

YAY US!! Thanks to all my kids for your great help! And an extra special thanks to Christianna, who pushed us to do this when what we really wanted to do was sit around watching "Once Upon a Time" all night! (*See plot synopsis and my review at this link.) Oh, and an extra, extra big thanks to everyone else who patiently went along with her crazy idea! ;)* * * * *Anyway, as far as continuing on the 30-Day Power Purge, I will get the rest of the challenges for the past week put onto my Kanban Flowchart so I'll be ready to jump in tomorrow! I'm not sure which days I'll do when, but I will continue to do a little bit nearly every day. (I say nearly because then I know I can really do it and not feel like a failure when I have to miss a day!)

One thing I've been trying to figure out is whether to change the dates so all the days are in order for future readers. The problem with that is that if the days are in order, many of my comments won't make any sense. SO - I'm going to go ahead and just write the "Challenge Day" number at the top of the post, but record the post on the real day when I wrote about it. So the days will be all mixed up since I am skipping some days and going back to them later, but isn't that what Jumbled Sunshine is all about anyway?!? :D After all, it will be more reflective of the way I actually accomplished the goal, right? And then it teaches all of you wonderful jumbled folks out there that it's okay to do things in the order and way that they work for YOU, and that does NOT mean that you aren't doing it "right". Who decides what the "right way" is anyway? What's "right" is what works for you in your life right now. And for me, right now, I just know that I want to accomplish all 30 challenges, no matter how long they take! In order to clarify the challenges and put them in order for all my sequential friends, I will probably put together a page with all the challenges listed in ORDER by day, with links to my posts about each day. So - never fear, it will be easy to read for ALL of you!Talk to you soon!

Disclaimer:

This blog contains the unique thoughts of the author and does not represent the views, official or otherwise, of any group, club, religion, or family of which she is a member. All thoughts, suggestions, and techniques are for entertainment and experimentation only, and blog readers acknowledge by their participation that they are aware of all risks, inherent or otherwise, they are getting themselves into by following said techniques. In other words, the author is not liable for any disasters that result from implementation of the ideas herein. However, she will be happy to join in your celebration when you find success on your own journey of finding joy in a fascinating world of distractions! Please share your stories with our readers so we can all learn and grow together in our world of Jumbled Sunshine. :) ~Erika~